


This sin was mine alone

by edourado



Series: Hell's Kitchen Chronicles [9]
Category: Daredevil (TV)
Genre: F/M, Tumblr Prompt, angsty, edourado, implied kastle, karedevil - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-05-18
Updated: 2016-05-18
Packaged: 2018-06-09 06:17:07
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,403
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6893476
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/edourado/pseuds/edourado
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Tumblr prompt: "angsty argument between matt and karen a while after he tells her he's daredevil because he finds out she's been kinda letting frank crash in her couch and going out for coffee with him and he's worried about her but actually he's just jealous cause he knows she kinda feels something for him and karen throws in his face that frank was the one there for her when matt was running around with elektra and he has no RIGHT"</p>
            </blockquote>





	This sin was mine alone

**Author's Note:**

> Oh, the angst. Not my specialty. This hurt. But I did it.  
> Tell me if I did good.

Maybe the devil did possess him. Maybe that red suit, with it’s horns, called for something, worked like an invitation.

Matt knew he shouldn’t be saying what he was saying. He knew he had no right.

And yet, he kept talking.

“Is this what you’ve been doing?” he asked, pointing in the general direction of the couch while Karen stood a few feet away from him, waves of frustration coming out of her. “Letting a convicted murderer sleep on your couch?”

He couldn’t see the look she was giving him, but he felt it. It was one he never wanted to receive.

“What do you care?”

“Are you honestly asking that? What do I care?”

“Yes, I am!”

“He’s not a stranded puppy you bring home, Karen!”

“Listen! I’m not a child. I’m not your responsibility.”

This was meant to be something good. Two days ago, they “ran into” each other (in reality, he calculated the time she left work and waited until then to go out for food). She saw him from across the street while they waited for the right light. There was no use pretending he was just a blind man who did not know she was there. So, when she tried a smile, he tried one, too. The light changed, people around him started to walk, she walked towards him. When a man moved to offer him help to cross, she got to him, took his hand and spoke. “I got him, thanks”.

Her voice had raised shivers on him. They walked together and talked, first about nothing. Awkward, strange. Then, with familiarity. He made her blush and she made him yearn and they made each other laugh. They walked for hours. Holding hands, stopping for food.

Today was supposed to be better. They were going for dinner. She just had to stop by her place to leave some files, and he came up, just for a second. And then he smelled gun powder. Traces of blood and rubbing alcohol, rubber boots and coffee. Frank.

Now, they were standing there, arguing about how reckless it was, to meet with him. Bond with him. Patch him up and let him spend the night.

“Do you know how many dangerous people are after him? Do you realize the kind of people Frank Castle pisses off everyday?”

“Well, you do the same thing, don’t you?”

She was so angry her hands were shaking.

“But nobody knows who I am, Karen!” he hissed, lowering his voice. “They do not have a target on my face, or the faces of the people in my life!”

“Tell that to the ninjas, they got me to bait you!”

He opened his mouth, not even knowing what he was going to say, but she went on.

“And the only reason they got me is because you weren’t there.”

“I was trying to-”

“No, what you were doing was poking a hornet’s nest with your ex-girlfriend. And I know! I know she died, and I’m sorry, Matt, I am, but that doesn’t change the fact that you weren’t there.”

“You wanted me to just walk away from that? From people taking children from their homes to do God knows what with them, take their blood for some cult-”

“What I wanted you to do is not lie to me!”

“I was trying to protect you! You know that!”

“What I know is that five minutes after she came back, she knew about you. You told her everything.”

“You know that she knew already. You know she used it to force my hand into helping her.”

She took her hand to her hair and looked away, heart going wild. Her hands were shaking and she was blinking fast.

Matt could smell tears. 

“You walked away from us. From me. Again, and again, and again. You lied and you didn’t trust me.”

“Karen-”

“No. You did. You took me to dinner and you told me that it was perfect and then you walked away to piss off some japanese people with her. You didn’t have to. You went because you wanted to. So now you don’t get a say in who I let sleep on my couch or not.”

“He’s dangerous, Karen.”

“Not to me.”

“Not to y- That’s not how this works!”

“You know he’s not going to hurt me.”

And then, the Devil again.

“So now you’re using him to replace me.”

She froze, looking at him and he wanted to kick himself.

“What?”

“From the moment he saw you, in that hospital, he clinged to you. No, I’m sorry, first he shot at you, and then he  
was arrested, we walked in and he will only talk to you.”

“Because I helped him remem-”

“Oh, come on. That’s not it”, says the Devil, that thing inside him that burned, that roared, that could not accept that Karen, his Karen, was spending time and smiling and taking care of Frank Castle. He could not accept that there was someone else at the receiving end of everything she had offered him, not so long ago. “He saw you.”

She stood there, looking at him, and he hated how it felt.

“Maybe he did”, she said, voice trembling. “And, unlike you, he doesn’t walk away. He doesn’t lie to me. Unlike you, he’s there when I need him.”

“When you need him?” he took a step towards her and she jutted her chin out. “What do you need him for?” his voice was low, now, because that thought hurt him.

Through the stubborn tears, Karen chuckled without humor.

“You know, I’m finding new reasons everyday.”

“You don’t need him.” The devil left. Here stayed only Matt Murdock. A mess, broken, trying desperately to hold on to the one ray of light that could make his cold world of fire feel warmer. Warm blue to cold red, ironically. “He might even need you, but you don’t need him.”

“Don’t you dare say I need you”, she said, taking a step back when he walked to her.

“You do”, he whispered, closing his hand around her wrist and anchoring the other on her face, wanting to scream when she flinched. “And I need you. For a while I thought I didn’t. After you said you weren’t mine to protect, but  
guess what? You are.”

“I’m not. You made sure of that.”

She was crying a little harder, now.

“You are, Karen. I know I fucked up, I know that. And I tried to accept that this was over, I even considered running, going away, but I can’t, I could never go, because I need you here”, he placed one of her hands over his heart and his forehead on hers, his throat closing. “I needed you since you asked if I remembered how it felt like to see and you’ve been mine since you walked me home in the rain.”

She let out a breath and his hand inched her face closer.

“But have you ever been mine at all?”

The thing inside him - maybe the devil, maybe his conscience - reminded him of how he felt around Elektra. Like she was the only one who knew him, the only one who could see him completely, how he felt like he never needed to act and lie and how he opened every part of his life to her, even when he pretended he didn’t.

“You have been ours, Matty”, said Stick’s voice inside his head while he remembered the feeling of finding out about the lies she fed him since the day they met.

“I’m the only one who knows you, Matthew”, Elektra purred while Karen took his hand from her face and stepped around him, her phone buzzing in her pocket. “You were never hers.”

He had fallen for Karen amidst his lies, exactly like Elektra said she did for him.

Take something pure and taint it with betrayal.

“You should go”, Karen said, sniffing her tears away.

Her phone still buzzed in her hand.

“Is that Frank?”

“Yes.”

She waited until she was sure he was gone, but he heard, from the sidewalk, as she called him back.

“On tonight’s menu, brazilian brew. Supposed to be the best.”

She chuckled, with humor this time, and Matt wanted to punch something until it turned to dust.

“You buying?” she asked.

“Don’t I always?”

The devil (from both hells) was particularly ruthless tonight.


End file.
